“He’s a joker, he’s a smoker, he’s a midnight toker,” Obama added.

Country music legend George Jones dies at 81

— CNN.com

There’s bells and there’s holly, the kids are gung-ho
True love finds a kiss beneath fresh mistletoe
Some families are messed up while others are fine
If you think yours is crazy, well you should see mine

— “The Season’s Upon Us,” Dropkick Murphys

The last couple of weeks in ModPo, we’ve been reading “Language Poetry” and aleatory poetry, including the work of Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman, Charles Bernstein, Jackson Mac Low, Jena Osman and Joan Retallack.

I have to admit it all seemed lazy to me. The reader has to do all the work. (See below for a differing opinion.) I didn’t like any of the poems enough to share one, so here instead are the lyrics to Randy Newman‘s “Marie”:

Randy Newman at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You looked like a princess the night we met
With your hair piled up high
I will never forget
I’m drunk right now baby
But I’ve got to be
Or I never could tell you
What you meant to me

I loved you the first time I saw you
And I always will love you Marie
I loved you the first time I saw you
And I always will love you Marie

You’re the song that the trees sing when the wind blows
You’re a flower, you’re a river, you’re a rainbow

Sometimes I’m crazy
But I guess you know
And I’m weak and I’m lazy
And I’ve hurt you so
And I don’t listen to a word you say
When you’re in trouble I just turn away
But I love you

I loved you the first time I saw you
And I always will love you Marie
I loved you the first time I saw you
And I always will love you Marie

If that isn’t poetry, I don’t know what is.

Here’s what ModPo professor Al Filreis says about aleatory poetry:

So this kind of writing, I want to emphasize, has rigor and it has intention at the level of design. It’s not easy, it’s not facile and it’s not to be confused with improvisation and indeterminacy and even random or arbitrary are the wrong words to describe it. Many, as I’ve said, resist it. Many find no beauty in it. . . . Why should I waste my time, it doesn’t mean anything. Well, I have so many things to say in response to that and gosh, I’m not even sure where to start, but I’ll give it a try.

Well, here’s one thing: when I think about how much of my time I spend, my own time, how much time I spend and waste really, watching and listening to things that make a whole lot of conventional sense but ultimately don’t mean anything. Where normally meant statements are empty and useless and unbeautiful, I figure that I owe it to those who seek a significant alternative, the time of day. Maybe they’re telling me to relax. Maybe they’re telling me let down my guard. I’m always, I seem to be always on guard for meaning in meaninglessness. Maybe I should let down that guard and maybe I should hear the music in the apparent dissonance and discordance of my world. And maybe the discovery of sense in language that was not intended at the level of the sentence or of the phrase makes that sense all the more powerful. And maybe when words formed through quasi non-intentional chance operations produce something “accidentally” lovely (I’ve got air quotes around the word accidentally), when that loveliness is accidental, I’ll be all the more astonished at the beauty that’s just out there, that’s ambient in our language and just waiting to be rearranged.

Hi everybody! It’s me, Lightning!

I love listening to piano music! Whenever someone at my house tickles the ivories, I like to curl up next to the bench and listen!

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We stopped for gas in Lodi a couple of days ago on the way back from Berkeley and I can’t get the damn song out of my head . . .

If I only had a dollar for every song I’ve sung
For every tiiiime I had to plaaaay while people sat there drunk . . .

Randy Newman has a new song and video out — “I’m Dreaming” — about a voter who casts his ballot solely based on skin color.

I listened to it . . . it’s great, like every other Newman song I can think of, but didn’t this train leave the station in 2008? We already have a black president. (Yes, his mother was white, but “mixed-race” doesn’t get you 12 percent of the electorate.)

Will some people not vote for Obama because he’s black? Yes.

Will some people only vote for Obama because he’s black? Yes.

As Geraldine Ferraro said in 2008, “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.”

Naturally, she was denounced as a racist by the Obama campaign.

Let’s move on already . . .

ple·o·nasm, noun

1. the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy.
2. an instance of this, as free gift or true fact.

My fellow Americans –

U.S. embassies in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have been attacked by Muslims offended by a YouTube video.

“Offended Muslims” — there’s a pleonasm for you!

The embassy in Egypt, hoping to pacify the attackers, issued a statement opposing “continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

DISAGREE! We should be APPLAUDING efforts to offend religious believers. We should be STEPPING UP efforts to offend religious believers.

My friends and I risked everything — including our lives, that’s how important it was to us — to ensure that Americans could speak their minds without interference from government.

Religion is all horseshit anyway. There’s no God. There’s no Allah. It’s all a bunch of made-up bullshit. Fairy tales!

As John Lennon — an Englishman, but otherwise a good bloke — used to say: Imagine no religion . . .

My bizness is taking me to Bangalore, India, at the end of the month. I got vaccinated for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.

I’m now immune to everything, including your consultations.

Blind Willie McTell originally considered the name Spicy Chicken McBites.

Mohamed Morsi, the new president of Egypt, has a graduate degree from USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering — just like me!

I feel a personal connection with events in the Middle East.

Related articles

• Mohamed Morsi Is Elected President of Egypt (mashable.com)

This is delightful . . .

Maybe you can use them as a way to engage in a conversation about sexism with your friends and family over the holidays!

For example, it is NOT okay to suggest that all a woman wants for Christmas is a man (I’m looking at you, Mariah Carey). Or that women are materialistic and shallow and want lots of accoutrements.

Except earrings, obviously.

Electric Six covers “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch”

“Sunny Side of the Street,” right?

I’ve had it in my head for three hours and now I need to be lobotomized . . .

If they want to. If it’s important to them.

For example: My kid has played hockey most of his life. We know some families where all the kids — boy or girl — play hockey, and almost all of them are good players.

I don’t know any families where all the kids play hockey and they’re all bad. Those families have decided for some reason that it’s important for kids to play a good game of hockey.

Another example: We live in a school district with a lot of Asian families. They don’t care about hockey. In Asian families, it’s important for the kids to be good at academics and music.

You don’t see a lot of Asian guys in the National Hockey League, but you do see a lot of Asian kids at our nation’s best universities.

It’s a parenting challenge — getting kids to assign importance to the right things.